Saturday, 6 September 2014

This happened a long time ago, much thawed ice has flown under the bridge of life, these people will likely still know who they are, as will others.

So a friend sent me this article; http://mindaberbeco.scienceblog.com/2012/09/18/118/ in relation to a mutual friend who is a bit of a climate pessimist. He is sure climate change is happening and is pretty sure we are fucked (to use his term). The friend who sent it is not a climate denialist, neither of them are. But they disagree on some things. I disagree with both of them on some things, this is what a healthy society is all about.

Lets call them Pessimist and because being a pessimist can be seen as derogatory and to even things up, lets call the other Stubborn. These two disagree on; http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-the-40-year-delay-between-cause-and-effect.html. Pessimist brought this up and Stubborn believed it was almost a form of denialism, refusing to even read the article.I believe his reasons are that the delay of 40 years is too great and that warming would show straight away.

I don’t think Pessimist is a climate denialist, have a look at the site and the article he cites; http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-the-40-year-delay-between-cause-and-effect.html For starters it is I believe the largest free online repository for climate science; it is pro climate change, each of its articles are peer reviewed and heavily cited. I know you have yet to read the article Pessimist cited, an article written by climate scientists, citing 6 other studies by climate scientists.

The article stubborn sent me claims that these pessimists are not researched and lazy in the area of climate change, and I would wager that from Pessimists source he is more educated in climate change than most, including myself. I also note that like a good scared blogger, Minda has not opened up the comments at the bottom for rational discussion, or dissent, the exact same behaviour that climate denial blogs do, can’t have any rational dissenting opinions as it would hurt their cause.